Word association

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Some new phrases have significant power — ‘New Labour’ hastened change by emphasising to the public Labour’s altered character

Sir, Professor Sir Alan Peacock (letter,
June 9) overstates the case that it was a changing world that gave rise
to vivid phrases, and not a matter of the phrases changing the world. Taking
only one of them, “new Labour” hastened change by emphasising to the public
Labour’s altered character and by implicitly foisting the unappealing label
of “old Labour” on those who resisted Blairism. Similarly, the epithet
“omnishambles” has changed, by however little, the public perception of the
present Government’s recent record. Words do alter events.